By If you can believe it, The Super Mario Bros. Movie just set a few more records in its third week up top at the box office. After bringing in another $59.9 million domestically, Nintendo and Illumination’s smash hit film has broken the record for the highest third weekend ever for an animated movie and has become the highest-grossing film of 2023. If that wasn’t enough, the jovial trip to the Mushroom Kingdom is also the best third weekend ever for Universal Studios, beating out Jurassic World from back in 2015.
There was at least some competition this weekend, though not in such a broad demographic. Evil Dead Rise opened to a surprising $24.5 million domestically, nearly rivaling the opening weekend that The Curse of La Llorona had in 2019. We’re nearly back to pre-pandemic numbers, which is a good sign for the health of cinemas.
Third place, however, shows a much weaker turn as the new Guy Ritchie film The Covenant only generated $6.28 million domestically. While it scored well with critics and audiences and has an interesting breakdown per demographic, it seems cinemagoers were still drawn to Mario. I can’t blame them, especially since most of the other films are a bit dour.
Here is the breakdown for the domestic top ten this weekend.
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie – $58.2 million
- Evil Dead Rise – $23.5 million
- The Covenant – $6.28 million
- John Wick: Chapter 4 – $5.75 million
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – $5.4 million
- Air – $4.9 million
- The Pope’s Exorcist – $3.3 million
- Renfield – $3.1 million
- Beau is Afraid – $2.8 million
- Suzume – $1.6 million
